Yo, it was triathlon galore this weekend on the Palm Island. The inaugural Nissan Atlantis took place with around 700 competitors taking part in disciplines ranging from a kids race

to aquathon to sprint triathlon with an Olympic non-drafting tri comp as the main event.

The main event featured none other than Chris ” Macca ” McCormack and he brought

along one of his german pro’s, Till Schramm.

The event was held on the top crescent of the Palm Island next to the iconic Atlantis hotel. The swim took place in the inner, calm ring, the cycling and running were laid out on the very windy and hot ring road.

to the race: did the race straight out of IM Texas training block, no tapering, had a good swim, swam with Till all the way, came out the water together and ran the sheer endless way up from the beach to transition, butted heads with Till on the bike for a bit, dropped him at ca 10k into the bricklane Palm ring road, put a bit more than 2 minutes into him until T2, had a solid fast run, that was so hot and windy, Till ran very well and took back time on the run, but in the end I hung in there and kept a 15sec gap to win it in 1:56 something……

Ian LePelley had a super performance to take 3rd under difficult late season weather circumstances. Macca decided to drop out of the race after, ehm, bike course problems.

Deirdre ” Didge ” Casey laid down the law as usual with the overall ladies, Anja and Crissy Harris took the Vet ladies, Stefan Spies took Vet man with a very fine run. Ed Hawkins took the sprint in his final UAE race and will leave DXB to head to new shores. Bye bye Ed and good luck!

Thank you Race ME events Christian and Paul for organising, Nissan for sponsoring, Nakheel for the usage of the tunnel and Atlantis Hotel for letting us use their property. Well done! 🙂

As a conclusion: super race in a great environment. A very honest, beautiful triathlon that can be recommended, but at the same time needs to work out some kinks.

peace 🙂 out to everyone. Olivier